House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 May 1993

Mr. Jim Dowd (Lewisham, West) : My hon. Friend may not know that the position of my union, Manufacturing, Science and Finance, has recently been declared identical with that of the two unions that she mentioned. It has been decided that, as long as provision is made for adequate worker protection--whether by statute or through traditional trade union channels- -MSF agrees broadly with the position of the other two unions. It has also been decided that, unless such provision is enshrined in primary legislation, no majority for any other measures will be possible in the House. I have a good deal of experience of such matters, having worked regularly on Sundays before I became a Member of Parliament--that is, when I had a proper job.

Ms Anderson : I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention ; my position is the same.

Several of our major trade union colleagues have recognised that flexibility is needed, and that whatever legislation is presented should not be too restrictive. That is the aim of new clause 10, and I commend it to the House.

12.30 pm

Mr. Lord : As almost everything has been said already, I shall try to be brief.

I was disappointed by the Minister's speech, which I did not consider particularly helpful. I thought it rather patronising, which was surprising in his case ; I also thought that, in view of all the effort that has gone into the Bill, his approach was very negative. We have been considering this subject since 1986, and it really is time that we got on with it. The Home Secretary's speech yesterday suggested a fresh attitude--a new willingness to accept reality and make progress. That was not true of the Minister's contribution. Moreover, it seemed to reveal his own views-- although they have not yet been confirmed ; it will be interesting to find out what they are in the end. It is taking time to tease out hon. Members' views. It is difficult for me to talk about my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame A. Rumbold) when she is not in the Chamber, but I have talked to her more than once about the problems of the legislation. At the time, she gave the impression that she

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was relatively unbiased, and was trying to find the best possible solution. Now she seems to be one of those most rabidly in favour of deregulation. When challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), she said that that was not the case, and implied that she might not favour complete

deregulation--which, surely, must mean that she favours some kind of regulation. If so, I welcome her attitude, but I hope that the i's will be dotted and the t's crossed in due course.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : I have been pressed several times to give my view. I did not want to take up the House's time with something that is irrelevant to the Bill and the House's decision on it ; let me say, however, that--as many of my hon. Friends know, along with all my constituents who have written to me on the subject--Scotland, in my view, has the best arrangement. That is none the less subordinate to my overriding objective of securing effective, enforceable legislation that reflects the considered view of Parliament. I do not believe that this Bill will do that, which is why I made the speech that I made. However, it will be for the House to decide, on a free vote.

Mr. Lord : I understand the Minister's position : he is in favour of total deregulation. That, basically, is the decision that the House will have to make, however we wrap it up. Either we want total deregulation, and are prepared to risk Sunday's becoming just another day of the week, or we must accept that the House has a responsibility to produce some kind of legislation--however difficult it may be--to preserve Sunday as it has been preserved over the years by our forefathers, who were perhaps much wiser in this regard than we seem to be now.

In a sense, new clause 14 sums up the issue. Others have already spoken, so I shall not go into much detail ; but it seems to me that either we want to keep Sunday special--a stance that is addressed by the Bill--or we want deregulation. The alternatives involved in deregulation are total deregulation--that is the honest description, and the Minister has been honest--and partial deregulation. I believe that both would result in total deregulation, one way or the other. One alternative makes no bones about it, suggesting that we should clear the decks without troubling to work out the complications ; the other would allow all shops measuring less than 3,000 sq ft to open on Sundays, and others for six hours a day.

This Chamber measures approximately 3,000 sq ft. The provision encompasses the vast majority of shops in the country. Under partial deregulation, such shops will be able to open on Sundays regardless of what they sell, while all shops--regardless of size--will be able to open for six hours. Six hours is not far short of a complete trading day. Technically, it is two hours short of a complete trading day, but how long will it be before trading is extended to eight hours a day?

The fact that all shops of the size of the House of Commons would be able to open and that all shops, regardless of size, would be able to open for six hours on a Sunday really means that partial deregulation will result in total deregulation. The two options are not, therefore, what they seem to be. Either we vote for the Bill of the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) or we vote for deregulation in one form or another.

Dr. Liam Fox : Does my hon. Friend accept that all hon. Members know the business of the House and have a duty to be here, if they think that it is important to be here?

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None the less, a clearer view of the will of the House would be achieved under the proposals outlined by the Minister this morning. We should then have all the summer to consider the proposals and then take a vote, with more Members being aware by the autumn of what they are.

Mr. Lord : I disagree entirely with my hon. Friend. Any hon. Member who is interested in a subject as important as this could have been here today. I accept that a small minority have engagements that it would have been impossible for them to cancel, but all of us have to be fairly light on our feet in the House of Commons and able to respond, often within hours, to various issues. Most hon. Members could have made time to be here and should have been here. My hon. Friend also referred to the Government's proposals. The Minister told us this morning that the Government do not intend just to introduce legal proposals ; there will be explanations of the effect of those proposals. I do not wish to impugn the Government's motives, but when one moves to explanations rather than pure facts there is always room for manoeuvre, depending upon the individual's point of view. We have had a lot of time to think about this issue. By and large, hon. Members have made up their minds about the matter. If they have not made up their minds about it by now, they jolly well ought to have done. There has been ample opportunity to go into it in great detail. By now, therefore, they should have decided what their constituents want and what they believe they want on behalf of their constituents.

In Committee, we also dealt comprehensively with the issue of Sunday opening before Christmas. It was suggested that all shops should be allowed to open on the four Sundays before Christmas. This was regarded by the majority of the Committee as a matter of principle, where there was no room for negotiation. The Committee decided that there was room for movement on other aspects, but on the issue of shops opening on the four Sundays before Christmas it felt that it could not budge. It is a Christian holiday. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South, I am not sabbatarian about the matter, but it is an important one. It is interesting that my hon. Friend also mentioned Good Friday. It is a long time since we all had a holiday on Good Friday. It is also interesting that we are thinking of introducing a new national holiday and inventing a name for it. But we once had a name for a bank holiday, and that name was Good Friday. Sadly, Good Friday now means business as usual. If we want to accommodate the extra shopping that is done before Christmas, there is a simple way of accommodating it ; by allowing shops to open later in the evening from Monday to Saturday. There is no reason why that should not be allowed. In that way, it would be possible to accommodate the extra shopping required in the weeks before Christmas.

Even though life is hectic and busy for shops in the weeks before Christmas --they want their tills to ring and to make as much money as they can--we must remember that life is also hectic for those who work in shops. They are just as entitled to have their Sundays protected and preserved in the run-up to a Christian holiday as they are at other times of the year.

If there is talk about opening on four Sundays before Christmas, why not make it six Sundays, or 10 Sundays?

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What not open on Sundays during the January sales, or in the run-up to Easter or in midsummer? Once the principle is breached, there is no knowing where it might lead.

Mr. Alton : The hon. Gentleman has rightly referred to the position of shop workers. Is he aware that if they were to resort to the employment tribunals that were mentioned by the Minister in his speech, the prospects of their being reinstated would be pretty bleak? The figures show that only 1 per cent. of all those who go to a tribunal are reinstated, that only 10 per cent. are able successfully to fight their cases in tribunals and that they receive, on average, £1,700 in compensation. In other words, for 99 per cent. of shop workers, there will be no chance of reinstatement and for 90 per cent. of them there will be no compensation.

Mr. Lord : I agree very much with the hon. Gentleman. This is a minefield. Whatever is written in contracts and whatever assurances are given, pressure builds up and it is easier for someone who wants to keep their job to acquiesce and to accept that pressure. Hon. Members will never hear of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been pressurised into doing something that they do not want to do because they do not want to complain or permanently to damage the atmosphere of their workplace.

It is often said that this matter is complicated and that, in trying to draft legislation we are almost certain to get it wrong--if only slightly. I accept that it is extremely difficult to make such legislation watertight, but is tha, because that is what is being urged on us? I am sure that it is not. If we believe that Sunday should be a special day, surely it is worth getting our intelligent and highly paid civil servants to redraft the law so that it fits what we want to do to preserve Sunday.

That, in effect, is what the hon. Member for Ogmore has done under this private Member's Bill and my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South referred to huge changes in our life that have been made by private Member's Bills. An enormous amount of effort has gone into the Bill, and I believe that it is the will of the House--with the exception, perhaps, of the Government Front Bench--to preserve our Sundays. Here is the vehicle to do it and we must not waste the opportunity.

Supporters of the Bill are not narrow minded. We are anxious to protect and preserve what is good in our national life. There is so much upheaval now in our country on every possible front. Surely we should fight for stability and to keep in place what we have had for such a long time.

Mr. Fabricant : Will my hon. Friend give way?

Mr. Lord : No, I am not giving way any more--

Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Janet Fookes) : Order. I do not want unduly to curb the hon. Gentleman, but he is now making a more general speech suitable to, say, a Second Reading debate rather than to the two new clauses under consideration.

Mr. Lord : I appreciate that, and I apologise if I have strayed slightly from the straight and narrow.

To most people, Sunday still is an oasis in this hectic life of ours, and future generations will never forgive us if we let our Sunday go.

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Mrs. Wise : We heard how anxious the Minister was that the House should have a chance to compare and contrast several fully worked-out choices. That is a novel doctrine of legislation and I wonder whether he intends to extend it to other controversial issues. For instance, will we have several fully worked-out choices on the future of British Rail--a matter which is equally controversial and over which the controversy crosses the Floor? I suspect not. The Minister's expression tells me all. That shows that the Minister is talking now about comparing and contrasting because the Government have no confidence in getting through the House the measures that they want. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) has been generous to the opponents of the Bill in new clause 14. Despite my surprise and misgivings, I realise that that generosity is intended to benefit the whole House : hon. Members can debate the options to save the Government the trouble and the time of waiting until the autumn. I appreciate my hon. Friend's motives.

Dr. Fox : Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Wise : No. I have not intervened and I am conscious of the time.

I am conscious of the fact that this new clause offers a succinct means of discussing the issues that are raised in all the other amendments. I trust that even the opponents of the Bill would agree that the amendments would not be necessary if the new clause were passed.

12.45 pm

The new clause allows the Shopping Hours Reform Council's proposals to be brought before the House and I shall examine something of what that means. First, there is the six hours of trading. We are told that our legislation is the slippery slope. We are asked, "Why not this sort of shop? Why not that sort of product?" Well, why not seven hours or 10 hours? The six-hour provision is certainly the top of a slippery slope, because there is no principle whatever behind it. The Bill rests on the desire of the House-- and, I believe, of the country--not to have a high street Sunday. As the hon. Member for Suffolk, Central (Mr. Lord) said, we do not want to replicate Saturday on a Sunday. That is the principle of the Bill, and the schedules and other devices are the means to carry it out. They have a perfectly logical basis.

The Shopping Hours Reform Council's proposals on worker protection are interesting. We have heard from some hon. Members, including from the Opposition Front Bench, that there is common ground that there should be full worker protection. That is not so. It depends whom one considers to be workers. There are even amendments before us today to remove anyone engaged in any management task from all employee protection. In its unadulterated form, the Bill would protect all grades and types of employee, including managers. And why not? What is it about management staff in retailing that makes them neither need nor deserve support and protection? I speak now for my union and as the president of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers as well as the Member of Parliament for Preston. I make it clear that all grades and types of staff join trade unions because they realise that they need protection, and the House should realise that, too.

The Shopping Hours Reform Council offers no protection for workers in Scotland, yet they need it even

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more than workers in England, because there is more Sunday trading in Scotland. The Bill, as it emerged from Committee, extends employee protection to Scotland. Everybody who is genuinely in favour of employee protection should vote for the Bill on that ground if on no other. Certainly all Scottish Members with the interests of shop workers at heart should vote for it.

The Shopping Hours Reform Council would not protect Sunday-only workers. That is deplorable, but, of course, it is part of the pattern of the results of deregulation and partial deregulation, which increase casualisation and increase the number of workers with no rights, no security and no status who work for peanuts. The fact that the Shopping Hours Reform Council would exclude those people from protection is typical. There would also be no guarantee of any protection for remuneration. The Bill enshrines the principle of double time on a Sunday and that provision went through Committee unanimously, without amendment. If members of the Committee were so worried about the Bill, why did not they table suitable amendments then? They accepted the provisions for employment protection and the Bill, unlike new clause 14, is specific about double time. In case anybody thinks that that is a daring and innovative idea, I must tell the House that double time in retailing on a Sunday was guaranteed in law until 1986. Nor was it removed from the law because of any pressure from employers or from the public. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers continues to have agreements with various employers which still enshrine double time. Of course, there is some Sunday working in retailing even without Sunday trading. There is stocktaking and preparatory work to do and that is why agreements mention pay and protection on Sunday.

What would happen if the deregulators got their way or if the Shopping Hours Reform Council got its way? Retailing is already a cut-throat business, so the main brunt of the competitive pressure would fall on the work force. That is why it is vital to have protection spelt out and vital not to have a high street Sunday which would even brush aside legal protection. I am not interested in lip service to worker protection. I am interested in real protection, in money, in the voluntary principle and in the protection of all grades of workers throughout the United Kingdom.

My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Ms Anderson) talked about the Transport and General Workers Union and the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Workers Union. She says that they do not like the Bill and that they are consulting their members. It is a pity that they did not consult their members before they gave advice to hon. Members. We in USDAW have just had an annual delegate meeting with representatives of every branch of the union, which is by far the largest union in retailing, and it was solidly behind the Bill. We are the union which, above all others, organises shop workers. We understand retailing and we know what would happen with a high street Sunday.

Mr. Fabricant : Will the hon. Lady give way?

Mrs. Wise : No. The hon. Member has intervened repeatedly this morning and never to good account.

Mr. Fabricant : I want to redeem myself.

Mrs. Wise : The hon. Gentleman is beyond redemption.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) was even more generous than my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore in tabling his amendment and I understand why perfectly. I will certainly protect his reputation.

The deregulators do not even pay lip service to workers' protection ; they are for "anything goes" and they welcome the Prime Minister's statement that the present law of the land is bizarre. It ill becomes Ministers to complain if local authorities find it difficult to enforce the law when they create such an atmosphere.

I will not resist the Second Reading of the new clause, but I will certainly resist the amendment and I will certainly fiercely resist any suggestion that the new clause should stand part of the Bill, as should anybody who is interested in keeping Sunday special and who has any concern for women workers who overwhelmingly staff our shops. When some people in the House talk about women, they seem to have a blind spot for the women who work on the check-outs, who fill the shelves and who do not want to work on a Sunday, but who want proper pay and conditions for the other days of the week. Nobody can tell us that there is no time during the week, with 12-hour shopping days in many cases, to shop. Anybody who can organise his or her time properly can find time to shop.

Mr. John Marshall (Hendon, South) : I listened with interest to the speech made by the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise), who said that, as president of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, she could confirm that USDAW was the largest union of shopworkers. What she did not tell the House was that nine shopworkers out of 10 choose not to be members of USDAW.

We have been asked to state our interest in this debate. I can do so succinctly. I believe in the maximum freedom of choice. I also believe that the burden of bureaucratic intervention on industry and commerce should be reduced. Unfortunately, the Bill seeks to increase the level of bureaucratic intervention in commerce. Much more important, it seeks to deny freedom. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) said that his wife was quite capable of organising her week so that she did not have to shop on Sunday. Good for her. No one is asking her to shop on Sunday. But I do not believe that the fact that Mrs. Burns does not want to shop on Sunday is a reason why I should not shop on Sunday or a good reason for preventing supermarkets from opening on Sunday.

We have listened this morning to some of the most arrant twaddle possible. We have heard the supermarkets described as the lawbreakers, as if every other retailer behaved legally on Sundays. I remind the House that 95 per cent. of shops that open on this coming Sunday will be trading illegally. It is not just the supermarkets that trade illegally : every corner shop that sells a can of baked beans, a packet of cod fish fingers--no doubt made in Grimsby

Mr. Austin Mitchell : Hear, hear.

Mr. Marshall : --or even a packet of sugar, or that rents out a video is trading illegally. We are also talking about every DIY centre that sells Miss Rumbold some cement and every garden centre that is open this Sunday. It is quite wrong of hon. Members to say that they are fighting a battle against the lawbreakers. They are selective as to the lawbreakers against whom they are fighting the battle and

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they are ignoring the fact that the first shops to break the law on a Sunday were not the supermarket chains but small traders and that the supermarkets have merely caught up--

Mrs. Ann Winterton : If I follow the hon. Gentleman's argument, he will welcome the fact that he has before him a Bill on which he can vote which will prevent the delay in a new law being enacted and enforced and will prevent the free-for-all before Christmas, which is such a disgrace to the Government whom I support, who purport to be the Government of law and order.

Mr. Marshall : I do not welcome the Bill because it is bureaucratic. What is worse, it seems to embody an obsessive dislike of supermarkets, as if sin sat on the supermarket shelf.

We should welcome the fact that we have one of the most efficient retailing industries in the world. I should like at this point to do something that I have not done since I became a Member of the House and pay tribute to the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Sir. E. Heath). The Retail Prices Act 1964, which my right hon. Friend introduced, has enabled Britain to have such an efficient retailing system.

Our supermarkets offer cheap prices and wide choice. The Bill would close them on Sundays. New clause 10 offers them a ray of hope. Some of the supporters of the Bill are the self-satisfied, the sanctimonious, the well paid and the well fed, who seek to make life less convenient and more expensive for my constituents.

Mr. Alfred Morris : Clearly, the hon. Gentleman is a passionate supporter of Sunday working. Does his support extend to Sunday working by Members of Parliament? Would he advocate that the House of Commons should normally work on a Sunday?

Mr. Marshall : Those of my constituents who know me well know that I frequently work in my constituency on Sunday morning, afternoon and evening. Many organisations will confirm that I am happy to attend meetings on Sundays if I am asked to do so.

Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : The hon. Gentleman is making a rod for his own back.

Mr. Marshall : I am not a part-timer like the hon. Gentleman, who suddenly appears at 12.30 pm on a Friday. He is such a part-timer that he refuses to serve on Standing Committees and lectures the rest of us on the fact that we do too much work.

Mr. Skinner : As a matter of fact, I was on a Standing Committee only last week, so the hon. Gentleman is totally wrong. As for being a part -timer, I voted in 98 per cent. of the votes in the last Session of Parliament and in 96 per cent. of the votes in another Session. I wish that the hon. Gentleman would check his record, which is probably similar to the average for other hon. Members--about 50 per cent. He should not talk to me about being a part-timer when he is lining his pockets with other jobs.

Madam Deputy Speaker : Before the hon. Member for Hendon, South (Mr. Marshall) continues, I hope that we will return to the two clauses under consideration and that matters will not get too personal. It would not be unparliamentary to discuss personal matters, but I do not like it. We should be discussing issues, not personalities.

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1 pm

Mr. Marshall : I agree, Madam Deputy Speaker. Some people incite one into straying down the ways of misguided thoughts--I will try not to yield to temptation. To err is human : to forgive, divine. Recently, I visited two shops in my constituency. One was Food Giant, which would be closed on Sundays by the Bill, and the other was 7-Eleven, which would be allowed to trade on Sundays. That is why I regard the new clause as important. The House may like to know the cost of some of the commodities on that shopping expedition. I wanted to buy a pint of semi-skimmed milk, because I am conscious of the need to keep weight under control. It cost 25p at Food Giant and 38p at 7-Eleven. I wanted to buy a loaf of Mother's Pride bread-- it was 29p at Food Giant and 71p at 7-Eleven. I wanted to buy some Nescafe- -it was £1.29 at Food Giant and £1.79 at 7-Eleven. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) thought that his fish would not be mentioned. But I wanted to buy some fish fingers made in Grimsby. They were £1.15 for 10 at Food Giant and £1.89 at 7-Eleven--a difference on first-class Bird's Eye fish fingers of 74p. That is a high rate of valued added tax to impose to keep the Sunday sabatarian conscience. I thought that if I were eating all that food, I should brush my teeth. What was the cost of oral hygiene? A tube of Aquafresh was £1.29 at Food Giant and £1.95 at 7-Eleven.

Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne) : Can I buy shares in Food Giant?

Mr. Marshall : Food Giant is not the most prosperous retailing group, but it is getting a free plug this morning. For a basket of well- known basic commodities and foodstuffs, the cost at Food Giant was £14.28. That shop would be closed down by the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell), who talked about the need for pensioners, single-parent families and widows to have a better deal. He would close down Food Giant at £14.28 and give 7-Eleven a licence to open at £19.56. I suggest that the cost of all that to the average family could be as much as £500 a year. That is from an hon. Member who objects to the imposition of VAT on fuel. The cost of the Bill to many families would be much greater than the cost of the imposition of VAT on heating and lighting.

Mrs. Ann Winterton : The hon. Gentleman voted for that.

Mr. Marshall : I know that the hon. Lady's husband voted against the imposition of VAT on fuel but she did not vote against it, so she is caught out by her own intervention.

It is accepted by people that supermarkets are relatively inexpensive and popular. Indeed, on Sunday, more people will shop in the supermarkets of England than listen to the vicars of the Church of England preach. We must ask ourselves what right we have to say to the people of the United Kingdom that they are wrong and we are right.

Lord Randolph Churchill, the great-grandfather of my hon. Friend the Member for Davyhulme (Mr. Churchill), told the Tory party to trust the people. Those of us who support a liberalisation of the law say, "Trust the people ; the people will decide whether they want to shop on Sunday." They should be given that choice.

Those who say that they want to change the law and keep Sunday special forget that Sunday will not be kept

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special by legislative fiat. Sunday will be kept special out of conviction. When I was young, my family and I used to walk around the streets of Dundee on a Sunday because that was what we wanted to do. We did not want to stop in the shops that could legally trade on Sunday in Scotland.

When I go around my constituency tomorrow afternoon, I shall see walking around Hendon Jewish family after Jewish family. Why do they walk around Hendon as a family on a Saturday? It is not because a law of the land says that they cannot go and shop. It is because, out of conviction, they do not want to shop on Shabbat. That is surely the way to keep Sunday special.

The way to keep Sunday special is for the Church of England to have a message for the people. The Church of England should ask itself why its pews are full on Christmas eve and on Christmas day and why they are not full for the other 363 days of the year. If it could answer that question, there would be no need for legislation on Sunday trading. But it cannot. People want to shop on a Sunday and they should be free to do so.

Mr. Austin Mitchell : If today's debate on new clauses 14 and 10 demonstrates anything, it is the need for Government legislation on Sunday trading. My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) has made a brave attempt, and I congratulate him on all the effort and hard work that has gone into it. But it has proved that to legislate on issues of conscience is beyond the resources of the Back Bencher and the resources allowed to back private Members' legislation. The problem is that out of the good intentions of the legislation we have ended up with a mess ; we have ended up with a dog's breakfast. We have ended up with Ogmore pie half baked as it has been presented to the House today. The Bill started with a simple, single, clear-cut objective. It has ended up with a mess. My hon. Friend is now attempting to pull the plug on that mess by means of new clause 14 which, I understand, he intends to vote against. That is an incomprehensible way to legislate on Sunday trading.

My hon. Friend started with a virtuous vestal virgin of a Bill and has ended up with not total but semi-promiscuity. The Bill cannot be totally promiscuous because of the long title of the Bill. At the end of the long evolution of the vestal virgin into a semi-harlot, my hon. Friend shoots her by tabling new clause 14. It does not make sense to proceed in that fashion. It shows the difficulties which face private Members in legislating on topics as controversial as shopping on Sundays.

If the Committee has done anything, it has given us a huge demonstration of the problem and has been a learning process. It has turned out highly trained neurotics, but it has gone a long way to explaining how difficult such legislation is.

We have heard all the arguments about Sunday trading. The debate on the new clause has been in some measure a Second Reading debate. Yesterday, I was reading Peter Paterson's book on Lord George-Brown entitled "Tired and Emotional", which is presumably how the members of the Standing Committee ended up. It gives the example of Lord George-Brown as Minister of Works in 1950-51 opening the Tower of London on Sundays.

All the stock arguments came out. People said that there was no demand to have the Tower of London open on Sundays. They said that the Beefeaters wanted to go to

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church and the sermons sometimes overran. They said that the Beefeaters must have a hot dinner on Sundays. They said that the Beefeaters must be able to take their children to the countryside or the seaside on Sundays. All the arguments against the Sunday opening of the Tower of London have been repeated today.

At the end of the debate, we must decide on new clause 14. It would be much preferable to make an immediate decision on new clause 10, which is a more realistic solution to the problems posed by the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore started out with a simple principle designed to stop shopping on Sundays--the basic principle of the Keep Sunday Special campaign. One would think that it was possible to legislate for a simple principle, but people then offer various exceptions to it. What about wet fish, for instance, about which more perceptive Members have argued? As soon as one enshrines a simple principle, everyone comes along with a list of exceptions. The Bill started with a simple principle, but an increasing number of loopholes have been allowed in it. That list of exceptions is open to many mistakes, because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore has already admitted, many gaps will have to be filled in the House of Lords. New clause 10, tabled by my hon. Friend, allows for that as part of the legislative process.

One can never get a perfect list of exemptions and those that we have ended up with seem to be male-oriented. As has already been remarked upon, there are many things for the boys, the lads, to do on Sunday. They can go to the DIY, get the motor spares and go down to the garage. There is not much for the girls, the women, to do, except to stay at home and cook the dinner for the lads to arrive back, drunk, loaded down with motor spares and DIY equipment to start cutting up their wives, the joint, or whatever on a Sunday. The exemptions will be allowed under an extremely bureaucratic procedure. People must register and prove that 80 per cent. of the business is in the specified, exempt categories. Those registrations must be processed within a month, but there is no suggestion about who will pay for that. Newsagents, for example, who have traded on Sundays for years, will have to go through that formal procedure to prove that they are fit to be exempt. We have ended up with a Bill that no longer keeps Sunday special ; it does not even keep it semi-special, because it will be left in a mess.

Mr. Dowd : Does my hon. Friend agree that KSS no longer means keeping Sunday special but keeping supermarkets shut?

Madam Deputy Speaker : Order. Before the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) continues, may I remind the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dowd) that he should address me and not the Bench behind him.

Mr. Mitchell : My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is the weakness in the argument about protecting pay and conditions. Those terms will be protected by firing workers in supermarkets who want to work on a Sunday. The Bill will deprive them of that opportunity and it will, in the end, result in lost jobs.

Mr. Peter Bottomley (Eltham) : In the mid-1980s, I was the junior Minister responsible for this issue, when 4

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million people worked regularly on Sundays and 4 million others worked part-time or occasionally on a Sunday. Not a single one sent a single letter of complaint to his or her Member of Parliament which was then passed to me.

Mr. Mitchell : That bears out my experience of talking to shop workers--they want to work on Sunday. They do not feel that they will be discriminated against if they do not work on a Sunday, but the great majority of them want to work on that day to earn extra money. It also gives them the opportunity to arrange their working week to suit their family circumstances. The father could stay at home on Sunday, for example, to look after the kids while the wife was working.

Ms Janet Anderson : The big four supermarkets employ 57,000 shop workers every Sunday, the vast majority of whom are women. In 1992 alone, they earned, between them, £100 million.

Mr. Mitchell : I want to encourage that process, but I do not feel that the Bill does so. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is as if my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore realised the impossibility of succeeding with the Bill and decided, at the last minute, to throw in what he calls an opportunity to debate the three options, even though he will vote against all three. However, we are not debating the three options that the Government will advance. We are certainly not debating total deregulation. How could we when the Bill's long title states that it is to

"Provide for a general prohibition on the opening on Sunday of shops for retail trade or business"?

1.15 pm

We are not even debating what is, for me and for most Opposition Members, the central issue : the pay and the regulation of labour conditions necessary for working on Sunday. Under the Bill, we cannot debate that subject because to do so we would have to reject new clause 14--under which we were supposed to debate the options--and go back to the Bill itself, which is incomprehensible. The procedure is unsatisfactory and we cannot even have a proper discussion. How can it be said that we can have a proper discussion in the House of Commons when we have an attendance such as we have today and when hon. Members knew only at the last minute that we were to debate the alternatives ?

Therefore, I conclude that the procedure turns what was a mess into a farce, and the House of Commons should not be asked to decide on it. It is essential that we wait for the Government's measures. I am sorry that their proposals are so belated. The Government have been dilatory and could not make up their minds about what to do. However, the only way is to use the authority of Government, with the backing of the research available to them and their legislative powers, to discuss the three choices and come to a decision.

Ultimately, even this place and the Government have to maintain certain standards on legislation. The Bill falls well below the standards even of the Criminal Justice Act 1991 and the abolition of pit bull terriers Bill-- the previous dogs' breakfasts that we have approved in the House. We cannot legislate on a principle that starts simple and ends up a mess, then attempt to salvage it by way of a new clause.

What are we to do ? The only option is to support new clause 10, with which I agree, but which is irrelevant if the

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